If Floyd Mayweather Jr. didn’t accept the Nov. 13 fight with Manny Pacquiao because he’s concerned his uncle/trainer Roger Mayweather might not be available after going on trial next month for allegedly assaulting a female fighter, that’s understandable.

If Pacquiao had to be without his trainer, Freddie Roach, he might not want to fight Mayweather under those conditions, either.

Even Pacquiao’s promoter, Bob Arum, gets that.

“Now I know how Manny would feel if he had to go into a fight like this without the services of Freddie Roach and presumably Floyd would feel the same way going into a fight like this without the services of his uncle Roger who has been training him for a number of years,” Arum said during a midnight conference call a week ago after the deadline for Mayweather to accept the deal passed.

All Mayweather has said is he isn’t interested in a Pacquiao fight at the moment, that he wants to spend time with his family.

Still, being without Uncle Roger is a legitimate concern.

What is not understandable is all the baloney that has taken place during, and now after, this second failed attempt at making this fight. During Arum’s conference call, he told reporters the only person he talked to during the process was HBO Sports executive Ross Greenburg.

Arum said Greenburg played mediator and discussed the deal with Al Haymon, one of Mayweather’s two advisers. Arum said the way he understood things, the Mayweather brain trust – not Mayweather himself – on June 30 had tentatively agreed to the terms, including drug-testing issues that tore apart talks the first time around.

Arum was asked if that was still his position.

“Yes, that is based on my conversations with Ross Greenburg,” Arum said. “Understand, I have never talked to anyone on the Mayweather side. I have only spoken to Ross Greenburg, who has represented to me certain things he had discussed with Al Haymon.”

But Leonard Ellerbe, Mayweather’s other adviser, sent out a real head-scratcher of a statement Monday.

“Here are the facts,” Ellerbe wrote. “Al Haymon, Richard Schaefer and myself speak to each other on a regular basis and the truth is no negotiations have ever taken place nor was there ever a deal agreed upon by Team Mayweather or Floyd Mayweather to fight Manny Pacquiao on November 13. Either Ross Greenburg or Bob Arum is not telling the truth, but history tells us who is lying.”

Apparently, that was a shot at Arum, whose infamous years-ago line, “Yesterday I was lying, today I’m telling the truth,” seemingly gets used any time it is beneficial to an adversary.

“You read the statement from Leonard and I stand behind that statement, and I have nothing else to add,” Schaefer said.

If there were never any negotiations, how come Oscar De La Hoya – Schaefer’s boss – told the Spanish-language television station Univision in June that an accord for the fight was near?

“I think right now we are very, very close in finalizing the contracts,” De La Hoya said.

Arum intimated Ellerbe’s statement is ridiculous. And he ripped Schaefer for his support of that statement.

“I am really disappointed in him,” Arum said. “He knows it’s not true. But he’s doing whatever he can to cling to the Mayweather boat. I really feel sorry for him. People shouldn’t do that. They shouldn’t panic.

“They shouldn’t join something so preposterous as to defy imagination.”

Arum reiterated what he said about the possibility of Roger Mayweather not being able to work his nephew’s corner. He also said he truly believes Haymon did everything he could to get the deal done, but probably just couldn’t get approval from Mayweather himself.

Arum said that’s all well and good. He has no problem waiting until next year to again try to put this fight together. All the grandstanding, he suggested, is unnecessary.

“Take a deep breath, we’ll fight somebody else and renew this thing next year without causing any bad feelings,” Arum said. “That’s what adults do. That is what normal people do, not desperados who feel that they have to stand on their heads so that their boss is happy, the boss being Mayweather.”

Said Schaefer: “It’s unfortunate Arum feels like that. But I tell you what, I would make myself available for a lie-detector test and let’s see who’s telling the truth and who’s lying. If I say I stand behind Leonard’s statement … it’s because it’s the truth.”

Arum said during the morning conversation that either Antonio Margarito or Miguel Cotto would now fight Pacquiao. By Friday evening, Arum had told Yahoo.com that it will be Margarito in either Las Vegas or Monterrey, Mexico.

Either way, Pacquiao-Margarito won’t generate the kind of interest Pacquiao-Mayweather would have.

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